speedster 1919

My Feedback: (3)

My first late afternoon with tracker III used scanner way too touchy locking up on many channels with a flyer in the air. Put antenna down and worked better. Since I stay at the field all day on the weekends I decided to see if my Hangar 9 quick charger worked on the tracker III. Wasn't sure if it was standard or JR polarity. But my charger plug would not go all the way in the case. I guess I need to make hole bigger in the plastic case. I also did a test (what if my plane's original TX quit) Just grab my tracker III set the channel and shift and plan to retrim and fly. This wouldn't be that easy. The AL and EL were on the wrong sticks so a tear out receiver and switch wires were needed. I knew this was too easy.......

Montague

The Tracker uses the same channel numbering as Futaba and Hitec, but that's different than JR. So, if you move an airplane from a JR transmitter to a Futaba, Hitec, or Polk, you'll have to re-arrange the plugs. (I'm assuming you take care of shift issues as well, with a shift selectable RX or TX or whatever). That's just life, you really can't blame Polk for that. Every transmitter has to put the channels in some order. Polk elected to folllow Futaba's lead rather than JR's.

It would have been kinda neat if the transmitter could change the order of the channels to "jr mode" or have an assignable channel order. It would be really useful to me at my field when I'm doing flight instruction, since we have mostly JR trainers these days on the field. (the Alpha series). I'm under the impression that some Multiplex TXs can do this, since you can assign any stick or control to any channel number.

The charge jack thing is actually pretty funny. The Tracker uses the same polarity as Futaba/Hitec, not the same as JR. However, the plug used on the tracker is actually the same size as a JR plug, but slightly differnet than a Futaba. So, when using a fast charger, I use a JR lead, and just plug the leads in to the carger backwards. When I use a Futaba plug, it seems to be loose in the jack, and not make good contact, or it doesn't fit in the case as you mentioned (depending on who made the lead).

If you're going to go cutting things, I might suggest that you consider trimming down the plastic or rubber jacket on your charge lead rather than hacking the case of the transmitter. Less warentee issues that way, and less replacement cost if something goes seriously wrong.

Most of the time though, I just pop the battery out of the Tracker. The battery is easy to get to, and the lead is a standard battery/servo lead, so I can use a receiver pack lead to charge the pack.

speedster 1919

My Feedback: (3)

Thanks Monty Thats interesting. I use a hangar 9 double vision that has fixed leads so I dought the 4.8v RX charge side would work with 9.6v TX. I might trim plug on lead but it did seem loose. I use Airtronics computer TX's and RX's and 1 JR RX witch seems to be a different channel layout than airtronics. But it looks like I might switch to Polk 8 RX in the future. Most of my club is Futaba , very little JR, very little Airtronics, and I am the first POLK they have seen......

Montague

I'm not familiar with that charger. It doesn't have the leads connecting to the charger with banana plugs? Instead, they are not removeable? That's a badly designed charger, IMHO. (especially since the point where the leads enter the case is going to be prone to failure on a field charger. That is, if your gear gets beat the way my gear gets beat).

I hacked one of my chargers a bit ago to make it work with banana plugs for just this kind of reason.

If I had a charger with fixed leads like that, I'd probably cut them short, and put on a female banana socket on the leads to allow me to plug whatever lead I want in to whatever output I want.

Esp. since plugging the TX pack to the RX leads on that charger won't help you, as you said.

I've no experience with Airtronics TXs at all, which is why I never mention them in my comments . So I honestly don't know what their charge jack, channel order, or anything else is or how it compares. (well, except that I've heard that Airtronics usually shifts the FM signal the same way JR does, but I think some Airtroncis TX's are shift-selectable. But that's all I know). Sorry I can't be more help there.

speedster 1919

My Feedback: (3)

The reason I bought the Hangar 9 double vision is built in voltmeter and charge fixed leads to do standard and JR TX and 4.8 ,6 volt RX's It worked great on airtronics,futaba and JR reverse polarity. Haven't tried HITEC because no one has one. Airtronics RD's are shift select but my favorite radio is the VG6000 with the one screen menu wich I think is the easyest TX to program in the indusry. The programing of the TRACKER III will take some reading and time. I will try to modify my quick charge plug to work with tracker.

genebond

The charger is the same as Hitec, smaller center diameter than Futaba.

Yep, my original wish list included remapping the channels.

speedster 1919

My Feedback: (3)

Follow up report. Weather finally allowed me to get my new Joss Stick up. I trimmed about 1/8 rubber off my Double Vision charger plug instead of case. Tracker III must have a diode in the charge circuit, But when I held my charge button down for 5 seconds the charging started and worked fine. Used the polk 8 RX and the range check worked great. I used the supplied polk servo on throttle because it is noisey and twitchy. My flight went good and the TX felt good in my hands and didn't notice the rachetty throttle while flying. Got my exchange crystals from Radical RC for channel 18 my sons favorite # and poped them in a couple of his planes and worked great on the Tracker III . This looks like it will be a great value and so far I am pleased.

Montague

About the diode, yes, Polk has said that there is a diode on the charge plug.